Joe Lugara took up painting and photography as a boy after his father discarded them as hobbies. His ominous images depict odd organic forms and inexplicable phenomena, taking as their basis horror and science fiction films produced from the 1930s through the early 1960s. He began making abstractions in Photoshop in the 2010s.

Mr. Lugara’s paintings and works on paper have appeared in more than 40 exhibitions at institutions including The Noyes Museum of Art; the New Jersey State Museum; Bergen Community College; Proteus Gowanus (Brooklyn); Drawing Rooms (Jersey City, New Jersey); Curious Matter (Jersey City); and in New York City with, among others, 80 Washington Square East Galleries at New York University.